News & Views

Here we go again! As I write this Hurricane Maria, a Category 3 storm due to ramp up soon to Cat 4 strength, is bearing down on the islands of Dominica and Martinique with its eye projected to pass through the channel that separates the two islands by the end of the day. From there the storm should pass close by St. Croix tomorrow night, clobber Puerto Rico on Wednesday, give the Dominican Republic a glancing blow early Thursday morning, and then run right over the Turks and Caicos on Friday.

Meanwhile, the islands of Barbuda, St. Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla, Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke, and St. Thomas are still reeling from the direct hits they so recently suffered from Hurricane Irma.

An infrared image of the eye of Irma directly over Barbuda, where she first made landfall. The beginning of a long train of destruction. The residents of Barbuda have all been evacuated to nearby Antigua, as pretty much every building on the island was demolished

The Caribbean sailing and marine community, not to mention the community at large, is taking it in the teeth. The loss of life, thankfully, has been relatively small (so far), but the damage done has been phenomenal. The term “biblical” is not at all inappropriate. To get a good idea of what it’s like on the ground in these places, you should check out the Facebook feed of Paul Exner, a sailor based on Tortola: “We function between insomnia, sleep deprivation, and adrenaline.”

Or just study some pix, which I’m sure you’ve been doing already.

This is Chanticleer, a Valiant 40 belonging to my buddy Jeff Bolster, which he had stored at Village Cay Marina in Road Town, Tortola. Judging from this photo she did fairly well: dismasted, ruined lifelines and pulpits, but at least she’s afloat. The problem now is how to get to her and fix her. You may recall that Chanticleer also weathered a direct hit on Bermuda from Hurricane Gonzalo just three years ago

Meanwhile, the rest of Road Town is looking like this. An extremely post-nuclear scene

The remains of the Bitter End Yacht Club over on Virgin Gorda

Marigot, on St. Martin, during the storm

Orient Bay, on the east coast of St. Martin, not far from Oyster Pond, my favorite winter base on the island

French troops on St. Martin. Civil order has broken down on some islands and military units have had to come in to keep the peace

Meanwhile, I’m chewing my fingernails over the fate of Dominica. When I visited the island with Hank in February of last year I was very taken with the place. It is much less developed than most other Caribbean islands and when I was there was still struggling to cope with the damage done in 2015, when Tropical Storm Erica caused flash flooding that wiped out several key bridges. Taking a huge hit from Maria now could be a real knock-out punch.

And, of course, I haven’t even mentioned Hurricane Harvey and all the damage he did in Houston. Or the unusually severe wildfire season out west that has seen more than 8 million acres of land go up in flames. Or the unusually catastrophic monsoon flooding in South Asia, which has killed over 1,000 people and displaced millions more.

Golfing in Washington State this summer

Personally, I am very much afraid this is slowly going to become the new normal. That we will be plagued by a relentless series of natural disasters that will eventually tear apart the fabric of this thing we call civilization.

If it really is just a Chinese hoax, I have to say so far this year it has been a convincing one.